American basketball coach Rick Pitino will coach Greece’s national team, the Hellenic Basketball Federation announced on Friday.
In a statement, the federation’s chief Giorgos Vassilakopoulos said that Pitino agreed to coach the Greek national team as it strives to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Details of Pitino’s new coaching project will be revealed during a press conference on Monday. Upon his arrival in Athens, he said that he would coach the Greek national team for free.
The 67-year-old American coach confirmed the cooperation with a Tweet:
Really honored to be coaching the Greek National team. Have a lot of work and preparation ahead but I’m looking forward to the challenge.
— Rick Pitino (@RealPitino) November 8, 2019
Pitino was born on September 18, 1952 in New York. He played basketball at the St. Dominic Gymnasium and later at the University of Massachusetts. His career as a coach began in Hawaii as assistant coach, continued at Syracuse again as assistant, before going to Boston University as the first coach to take the NBA.
After coaching the New York Knicks as a technical coach, he returned to the Providence Friars men’s basketball team in the NCAA Division, before returning to the Knicks, 1987-89. He took teams to the NCAA Final Four seven times in total (1987, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2005, 2012, 2013), and his teams won college championships twice (1996, 2013).
In 1989 he returned to the college championships in Kentucky from 1989 to 1997 before a four-year stint at the Boston Celtics, even though his name became synomymous with Louisville, 2001-17.
On December 2018 Pitino assumed the coaching of Greek team Panathinaikos to the end of the season and on February 2019 the team won the Greek Basketball Cup against Greek team PAOK in the final
PS A legendary coach to work for free? How comes?
